Film: D'Artagnan's Daughter
Release date: 4th October 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 125 mins
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Starring: Sophie Marceau, Philippe Noiret, Claude Rich, Sami Frey, Jean-Luc Bideau
Genre: Action/Adventure/Comedy
Studio: Second Sight
Format: DVD
Country: France
Alexander Dumas’ 1844 novel The Three Muskateers, and its story of the young hero D’Artagnan and his three swashbuckling friends, remains one of the most popular and endearing stories ever written. Recently released on DVD, Bertrand Tavernier’s 1994 film D’Artagnan’s Daughter catches up with the same iconic characters twenty years after the original tale concluded, and with an unexpected addition to the original team.
In 1650’s rural France, Eloise, the daughter of the famous musketeer D’Artagnan, has grown up with nuns in a convent in the French countryside. After marauding soldiers chase a fleeing slave into the nunnery and kill her mother superior, Eloise strikes out for Paris to track down her famous father and seek vengeance.
There reunited, and accompanied by Eloise’s newly acquired love interest, the poet Quentin la Misère, they set out across France to find the original three musketeers: Athos, Porthos and Aramis, and seek vengeance on those responsible: the odious slave-trader Crassac and his evil mistress, the woman in red…
Key to the success of D’Artagnan’s Daughter is its mischievous spirit and a wonderful sense of folly, which is entirely in keeping with Dumas’ original novel. It is extravagant; lavish, broadly sweeping, and often ridiculously over-the-top, but unashamedly so. The story is frothy and often frivolous but is completely aware of itself - and pulls off farce beautifully. The dialogue is buoyant and fast paced, with the rapport between Eloise and her father a particular delight. The jokes are frequent, and while the humour often relies on farce and slapstick, there is also a healthy vain of wit running through the film, which would see it benefit from repeat viewings.
The art direction is often stunning, and the period is rendered beautifully. Tavernier captures perfectly the lavish excess of the King’s court, the tactile squalor and filth of the Paris streets, and the sweeping French countryside and it’s ominous, looming castles. As you would expect, the costumes are resplendent; the hats enormous and invariably feathered, the boots high and the ruffled cuffs huge. At court, the finery dazzles and the bosoms heave, and the cardinal’s red cloaks sweep majestically over polished marble floors.
The film benefits from a committed and thoroughly likable cast, each of whom look like they’re having the time of their lives. Sophie Marceau is perfectly cast as the headstrong heroine Eloise, while familiar face Philipe Noiret sails through as the roguish, dashing, but somewhat gone-to-seed hero D’Artagnan. Sami Frey, Jean-Luc Bideau and Raoul Billerey all put in whole-heartedly cavalier performances as the musketeers; all older, slower and wider round the middle than we remember, but still with plenty of fight in them.
The villains are in no short supply, with Charlotte Kady deliciously evil as the woman in red, and Gigi Proietti in equal parts dastardly and hilarious as the scheming, paranoid Cardinal Mazarin. What with the shallow, politically devious teenage king, Louis XIV, and the slave owner Crassac (a marvellously worrisome Claude Rich), D’Artagnan’s Daughter is in danger of suffering from an excess of villains, but thankfully all storylines are resolved by the end, and, if anything, the abundance of foes to be overcome only adds to the sense of farce.
Things are let down a little by some unimaginative fight choreography, and a director who seems uncomfortable handling scenes of close combat. While the ageing cast struggle to handle the exertion, Tavernier’s camera idles uncertainly in the background as the action meanders along, and as a result we are detached from the action. It also requires a certain amount of faith on the part of the audience - and stretched imaginations - to believe that these three pensionable musketeers are still capable of scaling castle walls, riding leaping horses onto boats, and taking on twenty swordsmen single-handedly, but it’s all so good-natured and the stunts generally well presented that it’s easy to give D’Artagnan’s Daughter the benefit of the doubt.
The film is also too long, and feels as if the final act has been extended purely to give the musketeers more screen time while the story veers away from the plight of Eloise. It’s not a critical error, but feels unnecessary and could leave some viewers’ attention wandering.
Camp, frothy, and dazzling, D’Artagnan’s Daughter is a rip-roaring delight. Bertrand Tavernier manages to capture all the delight and folly of Dumas’ novel while adding a new spin to a familiar tale - and reminds us of why these characters and their swashbuckling exploits were once the most popular story in the world. LOZ
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